Maria Marcus12, Pirko Tõugu13, Catherine A. Haden1, & David H. Uttal2 1Loyola University Chicago 2Northwestern University 3University of Tartu

Supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 1123411/1122712 and the Estonian Research Council under Grant No. MOBTP40

Using Photo-Narrative Reflections to Foster Children’s Learning and Remembering

INTRODUCTION •  Narrative reflection is the telling and sharing of

experiences through conversations with others. •  Many museum exhibits are designed to encourage

active, hands-on engagement with objects to promote learning (Paris & Hapgood, 2002).

•  However, when objects are interesting in their own right, children might focus more on the characteristics of the objects and less on the concepts and principles they convey (Uttal, Liu, & DeLoache, 2006).

•  Narrative reflection may foster learning and transfer of learning by helping children focus less on specific exhibit objects and more on the general concepts and principles that can be learned from manipulating objects (Haden, Uttal, Marcus, & Cohen, 2016).

•  This project investigates whether and how the opportunity to reflect on an informal educational experience can promote children’s memories for the experience.

PARTICIPANTS •  We observed 64, 4- to 9-year-old children and their

parents at the Chicago Children’s Museum. •  Of these 64 families, 30 recorded memory conversations

about their museum experience at two delay intervals. •  M child age = 7.40 years, SD = 1.18 •  60% Caucasian, 20% Latino/Hispanic, 10% Mixed

RESULTS: MEMORY CONVERSATIONS

Associative Talk •  At the first delay interval, the percentage of children

who made an association to relevant prior experiences and knowledge did not differ by condition, χ2 (1, N = 30) = .001, p = .98.

•  Nevertheless, more children in the Photo-Narrative condition than in the No Photo-Narrative condition made associations to relevant prior experiences and knowledge 2 weeks after the museum visit, χ2 (1, N = 30) = 6.21, p < .05.

•  The results revealed that providing families with the opportunity to reflect on their building experience helped them encode the engineering information in such a way that it seemed to become more accessible when reporting on the experience weeks later.

•  Future work will examine whether the experience of telling a narrative facilitates children’s abilities to apply the information learned in the museum in new situations.

METHODS

For further information send email to: EngineeringLearning@luc.edu

CODING Families’ memory conversations were coded for STEM content and associative talk.

•  Engineering evaluative: talk that involved evaluating the sturdiness of the structure they built at the museum

•  We didn’t make it to the cloud, but we made it steady, and it wouldn’t fall down.

•  Associations to relevant prior experiences or knowledge

•  We made it [skyscraper] so high, it was as high as the roof on the Big Ben.

PHOTO-NARRATIVE

DISCUSSION

0 5

10 15 20 25 30 35

Memory Conversation 1

Memory Conversation 2

Perc

enta

ge

Percentage of Children Who Talked About Engineering

Photo-Narrative

No Photo-Narrative

0 10 20 30 40 50 60

Memory Conversation 1

Memory Conversation 2

Perc

enta

ge

Percentage of Children Who Made Associations to Prior Knowledge

Photo-Narrative

No Photo-Narrative

RESULTS: MEMORY CONVERSATIONS Engineering Evaluative Talk •  At the first delay interval, the percentage of children who

talked about the sturdiness of their structure did not differ by condition, χ2 (1, N = 30) = 1.66, p = .20.

•  However, more children in the Photo-Narrative condition than in the No Photo-Narrative condition talked about the sturdiness of their structure 2 weeks after their museum visit, χ2 (1, N = 30) = 3.29, p = .07. This was despite the fact that there were no differences between conditions in the sturdiness of the buildings families constructed in the museum, F(1, 28) = 1.43, p = .24.

•  All families were provided with engineering instructions. •  They were then observed building a skyscraper in the

Skyscraper Challenge area of the Skyline exhibit. •  Families were randomly assigned to one of two

conditions: (1) Photo-Narrative, or (2) No Photo-Narrative.

•  Photo-Narrative (n = 13). Immediately after building, families moved to a computer kiosk where they were prompted to tell a narrative about their building experience using photos that were taken during the building activity.

•  No Photo-Narrative (n = 17). For these families, the kiosk was not made available for narrative reflection.

•  All families were invited to record memory conversations about their building experience 1-day and 2-weeks after their museum visit.